The ECE hosted the annual ECE Congress in Rotterdam. The Congress was held on the 11th floor of the Rotterdam Science Tower, which is headquarters of the ECE Campus. The theme of this year’s event was Embracing Disruptive Innovation & Growth.  

The annual ECE Congress highlighted the latest trends and insights within the field of entrepreneurship and featured more than 200 successful entrepreneurs, researchers, policymakers, alumni, and startups. The congress encouraged valuable interactions between research, policy, and business by providing these ambitious and progressive minds with an engaging platform that facilitated professional networking, collaboration, and the exchange of ideas. Additionally, highly esteemed speakers provided insightful and thought-provoking presentations that were centred around this year’s theme: Embracing Disruptive Innovation & Growth.

View all photo’s of this year’s congress here.

This year’s congress, which was hosted by Kees de Jong and Prof. Eric Claassen, was divided into two parts: Innovation and Growth.  Hendrik Halbe, Founder and Director of ECE, provided an introduction to the ECE Congress and talked about the ECE’s goal of creating an alumni-community of 20,000 by 2020.

Cees Bijl, head of Emerging Business Areas and Alliances at Philips, was the first guest speaker. He intrigued the crowd with his knowledge and experience within Philips and discussed how large companies can stay innovative.

Following Cees Bijl, Prof. Justin Jansen took the stage and presented the results from the Entrepreneurship Index.  The Erasmus Entrepreneurship Index is an annual study which investigates and measures entrepreneurship among companies in the Netherlands. The research involves about 6,000 organizations that are active within a wide range of economic sectors and industries. The Erasmus Entrepreneurship Index is a joint initiative by the Rotterdam School of Management and the ECE.

Ab Osterhaus, professor and head of the Department of Viroscience at Erasmus MC Rotterdam, concluded the first part of the ECE Congress with an engaging and entertaining talk about achieving discovery and innovation during a time of crisis.

Following a networking break with snacks and refreshments, Marleen Vogelaar kicked off the next part of the ECE Congress, which focused on ‘growth’. Marleen, the co-founder of Shapeways, is a 3-D printing pioneer who co-founded a leading 3-D printing company. The audience was fully engaged as Marleen talked about her journey as an entrepreneur and how she was able to rapidly grow Shapeways while simultaneously disrupting the current 3-D printing market.

Simone Brummelhuis (The NextWomen), Roy Thurik (Erasmus University), and Anne-Wil Lucas (Dutch Parliament for the VVD) were part of a panel that discussed startups in the Netherlands.

The 2014 ECE Congress ended with an inspiring talk by Harald Swinkels.  Harald is the Founder/Director of De Nederlandse Energie Maatschappij BV. He kept the audience laughing while he talked about his growth and development of an entrepreneur. Swinkels began studying at the Erasmus University in 1993.  However, he didn’t complete his degree until 2004. This is because Harald chose the and pursued the path of an entrepreneur during the middle of his studies. His talk was inspiring and insightful.